1939: Theodore Roosevelt's head dedicated at Mount Rushmore
1940: The 'Battle of Britain' begins
1941: The British Army form the Special Air Service (SAS)
1942: The Messerschmitt Me 262 flies using only its jets
1943: The Battle of Kursk begins
1944: Hitler survives assassination attempt by Claus von Stauffenberg
1945: U.S. Army detonates first nuclear device
1946: Modern bikinis go on sale in Paris, named after Bikini Atoll
1947: News breaks that a UFO has crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
1948: The 1948 Olympics open in London
1949: Prototype of de Havilland Comet, first commercial jetliner makes maiden flight
1950: Entrepreneur Richard Branson is born he will found Virgin Group
1951: Marshal Petain Vichy France leader dies
1952: Eva Peron First Lady of Argentina dies, aged 33
1953: Armistice signed at Panmunjom ending Korean War
1954: Nearly a decade after the end of World War II, food rationing finally ends in Great Britain
1955: Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California, the only theme park to designed by Walt Disney
1956: Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis perform their last show together at New York City's Copacabana Club
1957: John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours & 23 minutes
1958: National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) replaces National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)
1959: Louis Leakey & his wife Mary discover first skull of Australopithecus in Tanzania
1960: Ceylon elects Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike as world's first elected female government head
1961: Gus Grissom, piloting Mercury-Redstone 4 capsule Liberty Bell 7, becomes second American in space
1962: AT&T's Telstar world's first commercial communications satellite launched
1963: ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) codes introduced into service by the United States Postal Service